Thursday, 4 October 2012

Reading Appendix N: The Efficiency Expert

Edgar
Rice Burroughs is a prolific author, and an author
whose works include far more than the Mars,
Venus, Pellucidar, and Tarzan
novels. Some of his works have no overt fantasy
or science fiction elements whatsoever.
Whether these novels fall into the “Appendix N” criteria is, of course
debatable. They probably did not from Gary Gygax’s point of view, as Gary
once told me he preferred Robert E.
Howard for plots and ERB for monsters.

There are no monsters in The
Efficiency Expert, except for the purely human kind.

Still, I think that there is some value in
looking at ERB’s other works, because he followed the same general pattern in
crafting all of his novels, and because there are always imaginative details to
look at.

The Story

Jimmy Torrance is the son of a wealthy
businessman on the West Coast, who is doing very well in College sports, but
whose grades are not the best. He
manages to pull it together, graduate, and then heads to Chicago, hoping to make
it good out East.

Needless to say, his understanding of his
job prospects are unrealistic, so that he ends up doing menial labour of
various types before getting a job as an “efficiency expert” – on forged
credentials. He discovers that the
factory’s assistant manager is actually embezzling from the company in order to
pay his gambling debts. The factory’s
owner, Elizabeth Compton, is engaged to the assistant manager. Eventually, the embezzler kills the owner,
and frames Torrance for the crime. Only
the help of a pickpocket and safe-breaker known as “The Lizard” and the prostitute,
Little Eva, prevent Jimmy Torrance from being convicted and hung.

Interestingly enough, although ERB has his
protagonist marry Elizabeth Compton’s friend Harriet, it is not until after
Little Eva dies that this occurs. ERB
makes certain that we understand that Little Eva is the “best girl” that Jimmy
Torrance knows. Without killing Little
Eva off (in what seems a contrived manner), it is clear that ERB would have
been left with his wealthy hero marrying a street worker….something that the publishing
world of 1921 probably wasn’t ready for!

Elements for Gaming

Many judges will recognize their PCs in
recently-graduated Jimmy Torrance, who is surprised that the world isn’t
flocking to hire him to run their businesses.
Being able to box, play football, and play baseball may be wonderful,
but they don’t translate to social prestige (unless you do them
professionally); similarly, being able to survive a 0-level funnel adventure
makes the PCs special, but it does not mean that the campaign world will fall
all over itself to enrich them!

Jimmy Torrance is literally a man who gets
by with a little help from his friends.
But his potential friends are not just friendly for no reason….in each
case, Jimmy does something for them first without any expectation of
reward. He earns his friends.

For example, the Lizard is introduced as a
pickpocket. Jimmy foils the pickpocket,
but refuses to turn him in to the beat cop that investigates the
altercation. This is the beginning of
Jimmy’s friendship with the pickpocket, and of the antagonism the cop feels for
him. When the Lizard follows Jimmy back
to his room, he offers to return Jimmy’s watch.
Now, Jimmy wasn’t even aware that his watch was stolen, but he takes it
in stride, with good humour, and even offers to pay the Lizard what he would
have gotten had he simply fenced the watch.

It should be noted that (1) the world isn’t
waiting for Jimmy to roll it over, (2) it is Jimmy’s willingness to come to the
aid of others – even at cost to him – that gives Jimmy the necessary advantage
of having friends, and (3) the circumstances wherein he helps someone come at a
cost to someone else, and that someone else ends up being an enemy to some
degree or other.

These are good pointers for a judge dealing
with social encounters, and they are important for players to consider as well. The player who imagines that NPCs exist only
to be used by his character will end up with characters who are not very
popular with said NPCs. Notably,
Elizabeth Compton is the only character in the novel who absolutely fails to
learn this lesson, and she is punished for it.

For the judge, it is important to remember
that having NPCs behave this way – doing something for the PCs without hope of
benefit to themselves, sometimes at their own detriment – is a great way to
make the players care about the NPCs in your setting.

In addition, ERB draws a number of
stereotypical characters – the union boss, the embezzler, at least two versions
of the job boss, the beat cop, the prostitute with a heart of gold – all characters
that can be used almost directly in a role-playing game. As a character, the Lizard begs to be used in
a game.

Conclusion

There are certainly some non-PC elements in
this novel. The idea of someone doing
good being “mighty white” comes up more than once. As a modern reader, you might find this both
jarring and/or offensive.

The Efficiency Expert
is not ERB’s best book, nor is it the most important book for adding the “Appendix
N” feel to your games. If you find
yourself having access to a copy, however, it is a reasonably interesting and
quick read.

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